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Iran's Role in Cold War Revisionism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Justus D. Doenecke
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Extract

It has long been accepted, almost as a Cold War truism, that the first direct confrontation between Soviet Russia and the United States took place over Iran in February, 1946. According to the traditional picture of Cold War origins, Russia's refusal to evacuate her forces--together with her simultaneous efforts to establish a puppet regime in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan--tipped the West off as to her global intentions. America and Great Britain promptly registered protests within and outside the United Nations, and, in the first effort at containment, prevented direct Soviet penetration of the entire Middle East. After Iran, the West was forewarned. As a leading textbook notes, in pointing to Russia's reluctance to withdraw, “Soviet power was prepared to move into any position that the Western states were not willing to defend.”

Most memoirs of American policy-makers stress that the United States had responded, and responded of necessity, to Russian incentive.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2-3 , Spring Summer 1972 , pp. 96 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1972

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References

Notes

1. Black, C. E. and Helmreich, E. C., Twentieth Century Europe (3rd ed.; New York: Knopf, 1966), p. 797.Google Scholar

2. Truman, Harry S., Memoirs, Vol. I: Year of Decisions (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), p. 523Google Scholar; Acheson, Dean, Present At the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: Norton, 1969), pp. 197, 499Google Scholar; Byrnes, James F., Speaking Frankly (New York: Harper, 1947), p. 304.Google Scholar

3. “X” [Kennan, George F.], “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. XXV (July, 1947), pp. 566–582.Google Scholar

4. Stettinius, Edward R. Jr., Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1949), p. 180.Google Scholar

5. Millspaugh cited in Gardner, Lloyd C., Architects of Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Relations, 1941-1949 (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1970), pp. 210–211.Google Scholar

6. Kolko, Gabriel, The World and United States Foreign Policy, Vol. I: The Politics of War, 1943-1945 (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 303.Google Scholar For coverage of the revisionist account of Iran during World War II, see Doenecke, Justus D., “Revisionists, Oil and Cold War Diplomacy,” Iranian Studies, Vol. III, No. 1 (Winter, 1970), pp. 23–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar John DeNovo promises a full account of American Middle Eastern oil policy during World War II. For some of DeNovo's preliminary findings as applied to Iran, see his unpublished paper, “American Relations with the Middle East during World War II: Another Watershed?” (delivered at Institute for Humane Studies symposium on New Deal Foreign Policy, August 30-September 3, 1971, Gibson Island, Maryland).

7. Gardner, p. 211. Emphasis Gardner's.

8. Ambrose, Stephen E., Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy, 1938-1970 (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971), p. 131Google Scholar; Fleming, Denna F., Vol. I: The Cold War and Its Origins, 1917-1950 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 341, 346.Google Scholar

9. G. Kolko, Politics of War, p. 298; Joyce, and Kolko, Gabriel, The World and United States Foreign Policy, Vol. II: The Limits of Power, 1945-1954 (New York: Harper, 1972), p. 236Google Scholar (hereinafter cited as “Kolkos, II”); Fleming, I, pp. 340-341.

10. Kolkos, II, p. 237; Gardner, p. 211.

11. Kolkos, II, p. 237.

12. Fleming, I, p. 341.

13. Kolkos, II, pp. 240-241. Here Fleming, who has defended international organization since the 1920s, differs from the Kolkos’ interpretation. The Kolkos rely heavily upon the State Department publication of documents, Foreign Relations of the United States, for the years 1945 and 1946 in an attempt to show that Iran was reluctant to bring her case to the Security Council but was strongly pressured by the United States. Fleming, on the other hand, claims that America and Britain were both reluctant to have the Security Council “hale Russia before it as its first act.” Fleming, I, p. 342. Fleming, who personally observed the Security Council sessions at Lake Success, declared that it was essential that Iran's case be heard. While asserting that there was “much to be said” for Russia's concern over Azerbaijan, her conduct was “illegal.” Ibid., pp. 346-347.

14. Kolkos, II, p. 238; Fleming, I, pp. 345-346.

15. Gardner, p. 215. Acheson cited in Gardner, p. 207.

16. Bernstein, Barton J., “American Foreign Policy and the Origins of the Cold War,” in Bernstein, B. J., ed., Politics and Policies of the Truman Administration (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1970), p. 56Google Scholar; Kolkos, II, p. 414.

17. Clifford cited in Thomas G. Paterson, “The Quest for Peace and Prosperity: International Trade, Communism, and the Marshall Plan,” in B. J. Bernstein, pp. 91-92.

18. Acheson cited in Gardner, Lloyd C., “From Liberation to Containment, 1945-1953,” in Williams, William Appleman, ed., From Colony to Empire: Essays in the History of American Foreign Relations (New York: John Wiley, 1972), p. 351Google Scholar; Clayton cited in Bernstein essay, p. 57.

19. Kolkos, II, p. 339. The reference to Business Week is from ibid., p. 343.

20. LaFeber, Walter, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1971 (2nd ed.; New York: John Wiley, 1972), p. 155.Google Scholar

21. The Kolkos refer to it as a “CIA-directed coup,” while Fleming calls it “our CIA coup in Iran.” See Kolkos, II, p. 419; Fleming, Vol. II of The Cold War and Its Origins, 1950-1960 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), p. 926.Google Scholar LaFeber points to the American guns, trucks, armored cars, and radio communications used by the shah's forces, see p. 156. Gardner asserts that the CIA was “deeply involved,” although “the details remain shrouded in mystery.” See Gardner in Williams, p. 409.

22. Participating firms included such American companies as Gulf, Socony-Vacuum, Standard Oil of California, Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Texaco; such British firms as Anglo-Iranian; and Royal Dutch Shell and French Petroleum. See LaFeber, p. 157.

23. The discussion in the above paragraph is based upon the Kolkos, II, pp. 417-420. The quotation is from p. 420.

24. The arguments of Mundt and Bolton are found in Congressional Record, 79:1 (December 3, 1945), pp. 11361-11365. For additional protest, made by Congressman Francis Case of South Dakota, see ibid., 79:1 (November 27, 1945), pp. 11061-11062.

25. For Johnson, see ibid., 80:1 (April 15, 1947), p. 3398, and statement made on Blair Moody's Radio Forum, ibid., Appendix, 81:1 (entered April 22, 1947), A1821-1822. For Fish see U.S. House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearings: Assistance to Greece and Turkey, 80:1 (March 31, 1947), p. 197.Google Scholar For Bender and Knutson, see Congressional Record, 80:1 (May 6, 1947), pp. 4612, 4641.

26. For brief descriptions of the regime of Riza Shah, see Cottam, Richard W., Nationalism in Iran (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964), pp. 20–21, 195-196Google Scholar; and Wilber, Donald N., Iran, Past and Present (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 98–99.Google Scholar

27. Cottam, pp. 196-197; Wilber, p. 113.

28. The Kolkos footnote Cottam concerning Russian demands about northern Iran but fail to deal with Cottam's assertions concerning Azerbaijan. See Kolkos, II, p. 743, n. 35. The Kolkos similarly use Lenczowski, George, Russia and the West in Iran, 1918-1948: A Study in Big-Power Rivalry (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1949)Google Scholar, to voice Russian demands that she must have an Iran friendly to her. See Kolkos, II, p. 743, n. 33. Yet when Lenczowski claims to find “political terror” in the Soviet-organized territory or an Azerbaijani regime possessing a secret police “modeled after N.K.V.D. patterns,” such comments are ignored. See Lenczowski, pp. 197, 290.

29. Cottam, pp. 73, 126-129, 208. Cottam does note that with the arrival of Iranian forces, “the general policy of sloth, corruption, and neglect returned.” See p. 129. Cottam also declares that the Soviet-supported Kurdish regime, led by the highly respected leftist Qazi Mohammed, received genuine popular support. See pp. 70-73.

30. On the Tudeh Party, see Cottam, pp. 212-213; on Soviet opinion, see p. 222; on Mossadeq's blackmailing, see pp. 215-216; on the plebecite, see p. 282.

31. Wilber, p. 120.

32. Cottam, p. 229.

33. Cottam, p. 279; Wilber, p. 121. Cottam blames an article by Richard and Gladys Harkness, “The Mysterious Doings of CIA,” Saturday Evening Post, November 6, 1954, pp. 66-68, for greatly exaggerating America's role in the coup. See Cottam, pp. 227-229. Cottam, however, does declare that “enough evidence is available” to indicate that the United States encouraged the coup. See p. 318. Wilber simply refers to “a spontaneous uprising of the masses.” See p. 124. Cottam also finds Mossadeq “an honest and sincerely patriotic man” and declares that from 1954 to 1960 the shah moved in the direction of totalitarianism, ruling through the gendarmery, police, army, and an Iranian equivalent of the Gestapo. See pp. 287-288.

34. Kolkos, II, p. 2. (Emphasis mine.)